


Fear of the Dark

by Kim Gasper (mickeym)



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Anonymous Sex, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-05-26
Updated: 1999-05-26
Packaged: 2017-10-08 15:47:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mickeym/pseuds/Kim%20Gasper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where does Methos go, when he has to get away from MacLeod for awhile?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear of the Dark

I had just a moment's notice--the streetlight reflecting off the blade--before I felt cool steel at my neck. I shuddered once, then leaned backward marginally, tilting my neck into it, my stomach twisted in wrenching desire and abhorrence all at once. It was the most dangerous caress I could imagine, and it didn't matter that the boy holding the knife behind me didn't know he could permanently end five thousand years of life; that wasn't the point. The point was--it was possible. It was here. And I wanted that caress.

But I didn't want to die. Not that, not yet. Too much still to do, to see, to try. 

There was still MacLeod. 

I wanted to flirt with the possibility, and see what it felt like. See if I remembered what it felt like. The terror of the unknown: would it happen, or wouldn't it? My body throbbed with the adrenaline rush moving through me.

The knife pressed a little harder, and I felt several warm drops slide down my neck. Blood. He had drawn blood. 

"Be still. Don't move, don't breathe." His voice was an obscene whisper in my ear; the ruffle of a moist breeze caressing skin that's prickly with goosebumps, and damp with sweat. "You know what happens to pretty men out alone after dark, don't you?" His tongue touched my skin, traced a line to where the blood had started. Another prick, and I could feel more drops, could feel his tongue lapping at them. I shivered in his embrace--if you could call it that. Too close; this was too close to other, much older memories.

All I'd wanted was to get away from Mac for a while. Just a little while.

The flat of the blade caressed my throat slowly, sliding up and down in an imitation of other stroking rhythms, and as part of me gibbered in fear, the other part wondered why I was perceiving this as sexual. Was it? Did everything come down to sex? Or was that just months of endless, unceasing frustration clawing to get out?

I wondered. 

"What--do you want?" My voice was hoarse, and a little breathless, and I cursed silently in Egyptian at giving him a glimpse of my fear. He laughed, low and dark; it was a dirty sound.

"Do you take it in the ass, pretty boy?" His mouth was hot on my ear now. The blade slid up, the sharp edge rubbing against the sensitive, tender flesh just beneath my jaw. I shuddered, holding myself as still as I knew how. I wished he'd relax just a little; I knew I had to be the superior fighter; how much chance could a boy of twenty or twenty-five have against my experience?

Of course, even fools get lucky sometimes.  

The blade slid back down, moving roughly over my Adam's apple, scraping my skin. More blood dribbled down my throat, my neck, and I had to bite my tongue against my urge to howl in terror. When his finger stroked where the blade had been, then pressed against my lips, hot and salty with my blood, I shuddered and groaned, hating that I was hard, hating that I was scared, hating him.

I hated MacLeod then, too, for being a boy scout, for making me need to get away from him.

My--assailant? captor?--drew the knife across to the small hollow beneath my right ear and held it there, the point digging into the soft skin. His tongue slithered inside my ear, and I shuddered at the mimicry of penetration. I didn't want to be raped; I wanted to die even less--however temporarily it might be. He drew the knife in a slow, shallow arc across my throat; I could feel the moist, red line as it appeared, and the tingle of energy that followed it, trying to heal the wound in this most vulnerable of places. 

The minute he lowered the knife to shift me around I moved, jamming my elbow back into his gut, a deep, evil smile breaking on my face. He groaned, and I heard the clatter as steel kissed pavement. Finally, free. Free from the adrenaline rush, from the fetid stench of his breath, from his hands touching me.

He sprawled on the pavement in front of me, gasping, and I could see that 'boy' was all-too-apt. Barely-bearded, as the saying used to go. If he was eighteen, I'd have been surprised.

"You're good--but not good enough." I stopped any more movement from him with a swift kick between his legs, and he grunted, curling over into a fetal position. I laughed, the power surging through me hard and strong. My cock throbbed again, viciously, reminding me of the adrenaline that had flooded me.

"Mother-fucking cocksucker. You got--"

"Shut up." A foul-mouthed child. I tried to remember again what it was this last time that made me need to get away from MacLeod. My fingers shook when I picked up the knife. It gleamed coldly, dulled on the edge by my blood.

It seemed fitting; so many others' blood had dulled my blade. I slid one finger along the edge, wincing automatically when it sliced me, then put my finger into my mouth to suck. Salty, tangy, faintly warm. Life force. My life force. Anyone's life force. The child was sulking beneath my foot; I hadn't moved it, as an incentive to keep him quiet. "I could kill you right now, right here." My voice actually trembled a little; the urge to sink this blade into him, to _feel _him die under my hand, was strong.

I was appalled by how strong it was.

"Get the fuck out of here," I whispered, ignoring his grunt of pain when I kicked him once more for good measure. The knife sounded loud when it dropped beside him. I turned once and drew my sword out. "And next time, make sure your blade is the biggest." I slashed it down beside him, feeling the fury growing inside me again. He flinched back, and I laughed again. Ignorant child. He thought he was tough, and frightening--

It was easy to forget how terrified I'd been, just a few minutes ago.

If I wasn't careful, I'd suffer this again.

Or maybe that was the idea? 

*****

I walked for a while after that, trying to clear the heat and bloodlust from my head. I was a little surprised, and dismayed, at how strong it still was; the need to _take_ screaming in my head and through my veins.

Where was I, just now? I couldn't remember where I'd gone to, on this last flight away from frustration. Paris? Barcelona? Palestine? New York City? I couldn't remember what language my would-be rapist had used; I thought it was English, though. American English. Not that that meant anything, but if _I_ were going to rape someone, I'd want to speak the local language--to ensure I got my point across.

New York City. Central Park. A continent away from Duncan MacLeod, of the Clan MacLeod, and yetstill too fucking close.

I'm halfway through the park, deep into the heart of what makes it *Central Park* at night time. The only other people around are the dredges of humanity--the ones I used to take great joy in tormenting, torturing, killing.

Rapine and pillage have their finer points in maintaining equilibrium within a society. They cull the weak from the pack; allow those with strength to grow, to live, to be strong.

I can hear my own voice telling MacLeod something of the very sort; grow stronger, live to fight another day. It would be nice if I could take my own advice, once in awhile.

I hate it when my words come back to haunt me.

*****

It was nothing more than release of the most animalistic sort; the man standing over me was still shaking; my own legs wouldn't hold me any longer.

His cock was still semi-hard, and I moved forward again, licking the drop of liquid off the tip. I had denied myself for so long, I'd almost forgotten how great the pleasure could be--especially the pleasure of full, rutting _sex_, with someone you didn't know, and would never see again.

The bitterness of semen on my tongue gave way to something else; not much, just a splash of liquid, but enough to surprise me. I coughed and choked, not expecting it, and most of it splashed down on my chest and face, staining my clothes, marking me with another pungent scent to go with the scent of sex. Making me not me any longer. And for now, that was fine.

Kronos would have laughed at me, if he could see me. My face all streaked with sweat, and other fluids; tears stinging my eyes, and my throat burning.

He'd call me weak, my brother in blood-and-death. I could hear his voice, now. _You've grown soft, Brother._ I have. It's a different life now; one that doesn't require the stamina--mental, physical or emotional--of the life I lived then. I'm not sure if that's better, or worse.

Two thousand years ago, Duncan MacLeod wouldn't have troubled me a bit. Now, when my defenses are down, he's like a flea biting at my balls. I can't squash him--I don't want to. But he's…Duncan. He irritates me, intrigues me, upsets the order of my life, but also restores a sense of--something--that I have missed for many, many years. Decades. Centuries.

It took me a long time to realize that I loved him.

It took longer still, to be able to admit it to myself.

I still can't admit it to him. How could I? He looks at me sometimes, even now, with judgment written in his eyes. Although we forgave each other what passed between us with Kronos and Cassandra, the peace that we achieved is fragile, easily tested.

So, when it's tested too much, I run…

…to places like this. On my knees, on my back, holding my head back with a knife at my throat, until the adrenaline surges through me and burns away the helpless, hopeless feeling that loving him sometimes gives me.

Until it gives me back my power.

Power he can't know about, because he wouldn't understand it.

Because he'd condemn it, and me.

I hate him, sometimes. As much as I love him.

*****

The heat of summer has baked everything to a fine, putrid mass. It's almost like being in the desert so many centuries--so many millennia--ago.

Then, it was the stench of rotting bodies; today, it's the stink of rotting food. Not so very different, in some ways.

There were two of them, this time; a boy and a girl. Oh, older than my first assailant, but not by much. They looked like identical twins, but I don't believe they were related. She tried to seduce me--he tried to rob me.

I left them alive, but the power, the _need_ that burned inside me literally screamed to rectify that. To show them that they can't mess with Death; that Death always wins in the end.

I think I left them alive.

I hope like hell I did.

I don't kill on purpose. Not now, not unless it's part of the game. But there are times, like now, when I can't remember who I am or where I am or when. Blood, sex, violence…it swirls together, becoming something as dense and unyielding as a black hole might be, and it has all the pull of one, as well. I might be me when I go into it; I have no idea who it is that emerges.

Its grip isn't as strong anymore though. I've walked a lot; I've stopped to sleep, to eat, to fuck when the need gripped me.

The last one had long dark hair that swirled over his shoulders, and over my fingers that clenched in it. I fucked him three times; on the last time, his cry swallowed up my hoarse voice whispering, "Duncan…"

*****

Autumn's coming; I can feel it in my bones; I can smell it in the air. How long have I been gone, this time? Weeks, months…the days all blend together. I'm getting restless again; itchy to stop wandering.

That thought makes me laugh, because there was a time when wander was all I did--I had nothing I considered a permanent home.

I still wouldn't call it permanent, but it is home, after a fashion.

"Home is where MacLeod is." My voice startles me; I haven't spoken much in the last few weeks. There's been no need. That amuses me; it's hard to admit, but it's true enough. Wherever the Highlander is, is where I'll likely end up, when this jaunt is over.

And it's nearly done now; the urgings of my mind, of my body, have calmed some. I can think again, without feeling the frustration that filled me before. There's still longing there, and maybe one day we'll be to a place where I can address it with him. Maybe.

For now, I'll hang around, and when I can't hang around any longer I'll leave again.

Until I need to come home.

Because home…is where MacLeod is.

~~finis~~

 


End file.
